The processing of a silver halide color photographic material essentially comprises three steps, i.e., development (in the case of color reversal material, black-and-white development is conducted before color development), desilvering and rinse. The desilvering process comprises a bleach and fixing or a combined bleach and fixing step. In addition to these steps, additional processing steps such as stabilizing, prebath processing before each step and stop step may be used. In color development, silver halides which have been exposed to light are reduced with a color developing agent to produce silver and halogen ions. At the same time, the color developing agent thus oxidized reacts with a coupler to form a dye. Therefore, when a large amount of a silver halide photographic material is continuously processed with an automatic developing machine or the like, halogen ions accumulate in the developer. In recent years, there has been a positive tendency to reduce the replenishment rate for the purpose of saving resources and preventing environmental pollution.
However, if the replenishment rate of the developer is reduced thoughtlessly, the resulting accumulation of substances eluted from the photographic light-sensitive material, particularly iodine ion and bromine ion, causes the development activity to drop and this impairs the rapidity of the processing. As an approach for solving this problem, a method which comprises raising the pH of the developer and the processing temperature may be used. However, this approach is disadvantageous because great fluctuations of photographic properties and deterioration in the stability of the developer during continuous processing occur. Further, for the purpose of eliminating the accumulation of iodine ion or bromine ion, which is a strong development inhibitor, to expedite the processing, JP-A-68-95345, JP-A-59-232342, and JP-A-61-70552 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"), and WO 87-04534 disclose a method which comprises the use of a silver halide color photographic material having a high silver chloride content. This method is regarded as an effective means of enabling rapid processing even with a reduced developer replenishment rate.
However, with a color developer comprising 4-amino-3-methyl-N-ethyl-N-.beta.-methanesulfonamidoethyl aniline, which is a conventional developing agent, it is difficult to maintain the stability of the processing solution and accomplish an ultrarapid processing within 30 seconds or less while achieving stable photographic properties during continuous processing. In other words, it has been found that although a silver halide photographic material having a high silver chloride content can be rapidly processed with a high pH developer or a high temperature developer, a marked deterioration in the stability of the processing solution as well as in processing stability occur, making it impossible to put this system into practical use. Further, an approach for suppressing the fluctuations of the photographic properties due to the accumulation of bromine ions during the development of a silver halide photographic material mainly comprising silver bromochloride's, a method which comprises use of an N-hydroxyalkyl-substituted p-phenylenediamine derivative is disclosed in JP-A-61-261740, and JP-A-61-275837. These patent specifications describe that if the color development is effected in a short period of time to reduce the remaining amount of a color developing agent in the photographic light-sensitive material, the resulting dye exhibits improved storage stability.
On the other hand, it is said that if a hydroxyalkyl-substituted p-phenylenediamine derivative is used, the resulting developed dye exhibits a remarkably deteriorated storage stability, particularly fastness to light. In fact, when a photographic light-sensitive material comprising a silver halide emulsion having 80 mol % or more of silver chloride is processed with a color developer containing 4-amino-3-methyl-N-ethyl-N-.beta.-hydroxyethylaniline and without benzyl alcohol, an image can be rapidly formed (in 30 seconds) with an excellent processing stability. It was, however, found that despite the short time processing, the resulting image exhibits a poorer light fastness than with 4-amino-3-methyl-N-ethyl-N-.beta.-methanesulfonamidoethyl-aniline. Further, British Patent 807,899 discloses that the use of a certain kind of an N-hydroxyalkyl-substituted p-phenylenediamine derivative provides an excellent cyan dye storage stability. However, this is attributed to the fact that the color development is effected over a long period of time. Thus, cyan dye preservability can be further improved. However, on the contrary, yellow and magenta dye preservability is deteriorated. Therefore, the image which has been stored is remarkably poorly-balanced and thus is not worth seeing.
At present, low replenishment processing and ultrarapid processing are keenly desired by those skilled in the art. As mentioned above, the present situation is that if both of these two requirements are met, another problem arises that the resulting dye exhibits some degree of deterioration in storage stability, particularly fastness to light. In other words, a dye image developed from the above described 4-amino-3-methyl-N-ethyl-N-.beta.-hydroxyethylaniline exhibits a drastically deteriorated light fastness. U.S. Pat. No. 5,176,987 discloses that this problem can be solved by use of a developing agent having a specific chemical structure. In other words, the disclosure is that the fastness of developed dye to light can be drastically enhanced while maintaining the rapidity of processing merely by replacing the hydroxyethyl group in 4-amino-3-methyl-N-ethyl-N-.beta.-hydroxyethylaniline with a hydroxypropyl group or a hydroxybutyl group. However, it was found that if the image is stored under high humidity conditions, a deterioration in the resolving power or stain increase on the cyan image easily occur. In particular, these problems become particularly marked when the desilvering time and rinse time after development are both reduced, making it impossible to fully remove the processing solution components.
In the prior art, phenolic or naphtholic cyan coupler have been used as a cyan coupler for the formation of a cyan color image.
These cyan couplers are used in a process which comprises the reaction of an aromatic primary amine color developing agent oxidized with exposed silver halide as an oxidizing agent, with couplers to form indophenol, indoaniline, indamine, azomethine, phenoxadine, phenadine dyes and analogous dyes, i.e., substractive color image formation process, normally a color image formation process which comprises changing the amount of the three color dyes, i.e., yellow, magenta and cyan, produced to form a color image.
However, these phenolic or naphtholic cyan couplers have a great disadvantage because they have an undesirable absorption in the green light range and blue light range, and this markedly deteriorates blue or green color reproducibility. It has been keenly desired to solve this problem.
Use of 2,4-diphenylimidazole cyan couplers as described in EP 249,453A2 have been proposed as a means of solving this problem. It is true that dyes developed from these couplers exhibit less undesirable absorption in the green light range and blue light range than conventional dyes and thus are advantageous in color reproduction. However, even these couplers leave much to be desired in color reproducibility. Further, these couplers have further disadvantages because they exhibit a low reactivity with the oxidation product of a developing agent, i.e., coupling reactivity, and the dyes thus developed exhibit a remarkably low fastness to heat and light. Thus, these couplers cannot be used practically.
Moreover, pyrazoloazole cyan couplers as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,873,183 exhibit less undesirable absorption in the green light range and the blue light range than the conventional dyes but similarly leave much to be desired in color reproducibility. These cyan couplers have another problem that they exhibit a remarkably low color developability.
Further, if a photographic light-sensitive material comprising these cyan couplers is rapidly processed, color reproducibility and coloring properties are deteriorated in comparison with conventional processing comprising a long time color development step.